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At 9/18/09 08:41 PM, Patton3 wrote: yet another symbol of the Cold War fell. As I'm sure most if not all of you know, Pres. Obama announced the removal of the Eastern European missile shield. What do you all think about this. Not to discriminate, but I think it would be particularly interesting to hear from our European members.

Well,I believe that Obama is wrong.All these Islamic nations are dangerous(I'm not a racist).In Europe we have a big problem with muslims and terorrists which in America you won't see.I believe that the war with the terrorists was a good move.Osama Bin Landen was insane which made 1 milion Jihads.Anyways...I think its a bad move.

Speaking of history.... how many of you know that the Gulf of Tonkin attack, used to justify the Vietnam war that killed a million people, was completely staged by the US government..?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Ton kin_Incident

"In 2005, an internal National Security Agency historical study was declassified; it concluded[3] that Maddox had engaged the North Vietnamese on August 2, but that there may not have been any North Vietnamese vessels present during the engagement of August 4. The report stated

[I]t is not simply that there is a different story as to what happened; it is that no attack happened that night. [...] In truth, Hanoi's navy was engaged in nothing that night but the salvage of two of the boats damaged on August 2.[4]"

Now you do

At 9/18/09 08:41 PM, Patton3 wrote: yet another symbol of the Cold War fell. As I'm sure most if not all of you know, Pres. Obama announced the removal of the Eastern European missile shield. What do you all think about this. Not to discriminate, but I think it would be particularly interesting to hear from our European members.

Its about bloody time in my opinion, missile shields have been shown to be almost totally ineffective white elephants which say to people like the Russians "we don't trust you". The concept is insane, that one can shoot a missile out of the air with another missile is akin to shooting bullets out of the air... with other bullets. According to Douglas Niles the level of failure with these programs are sky high, missiles dont launch, the enemy missile cant be detected, and only in the very, very best conditions does the missile ever manage to intercept and destroy the incoming missile, close to ten percent of the time. Not very comforting is it?
To add to the problem its simple for an enemy power to render the system useless, missiles can be equipped with stealth technology (like in the B-2 spirit) to slip through the radar, or they can simply fire a ton of confusing decoy missiles to confuse the system while the real nuclear warhead is hidden in the mass.
Thus it is a multi-billion dollar waste of money, which has an unnecessary destableising effect on world politics, so yeah, I'm glad to see it go.

On another note and potential topic, I'm reading Thomas Friedman's "The World is Flat" and in it he says that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were some of the first to predict globalization in none other than The Communist Manifesto. Any thoughts on this?

Marx was quite innovative even without the whole communism stuff, apparently he was the first person to recognize trade cycles.
BTW just out of curiosity, does anyone know how many civilians were killed in the American civil war?

Our only "effective" anti-missile system is the patriot missile launcher. Basically a missile truck equipped with medium range radar is loaded with these missiles, and once one of these patriots is locked on, it can take down an airborne missile, so long as it's target is ground based. it has a max range of two miles, and was first used in The Gulf War. It probably could take out a nuclear msiile, but the launch platform would be in the blast radius, and modern nukes have 10 warheads.
The patriot has proven itself highly effective when working in sync with AA defenses in providing a 4 mile wide "roof" over bases, cities, and advancing troops. It can defeat short range ground targeted missiles, providing a morale boost to our men, and defeating morale in the enemy.

As for the American Civil War, total dead was about 600,000. Almost all were military casualties. Many think that when cities and farmhouses were burned, particularly during the Sherman's infamous march, many civilians were killed. In actuality, it was mostly just destruction of property either by restless troops, or attempts to destroy confederate supply lines and morale. Sherman actually killed very few civilians, and lost but 600 men throughout his campaign. Although the property destruction his troops encured was enormous.

At 9/20/09 11:22 AM, Patton3 wrote:

The patriot has proven itself highly effective when working in sync with AA defenses in providing a 4 mile wide "roof" over bases, cities, and advancing troops. It can defeat short range ground targeted missiles, providing a morale boost to our men, and defeating morale in the enemy.

Not quite so, in the Gulf war it is stated that the patriot had a success rate of only about 30 percent, which doesn't bode well. That doesn't even mean destroying the missile, "success" was simply intercepting it, which could be as small as nudging off course. In Iraq this might have been enough, since the warhead probably would just end up in an unpopulated desert, but in a nuclear war thats not enough at all, instead of hitting the centre of a city it may "only" hit a suburb. 100,000 dead instead of 200,000! Er, mission successful? Add to that the variety of ways that a nation can make this already shaky defense system completely pointless as i portrayed in my last post, to me it says one thing. for a nuclear war, Mutually assured destruction still stands, and will stay no matter how many missiles one fires at the problem. consider.

As for the American Civil War, total dead was about 600,000. Almost all were military casualties. Many think that when cities and farmhouses were burned, particularly during the Sherman's infamous march, many civilians were killed. In actuality, it was mostly just destruction of property either by restless troops, or attempts to destroy confederate supply lines and morale. Sherman actually killed very few civilians, and lost but 600 men throughout his campaign. Although the property destruction his troops encured was enormous.

Interesting, but I would have thought that since it was the first total industrial war the civilian casulties would be immense, I heard a figure saying that it may have been as high as one million (ding) but resources on this are hard to find, the 600,000 is only military and nobody really knows how many civilians were killed. I don't believe that it could have been very low at all, even if all the rampaging troops did was destroy farms and burn houses it would still have left tens of thousands of people with no food or shelter, and considering that in, for example, Russia during the civil war that generally leads to starvation and famine, I don't think it would be too conservative to say that the total dead was twice the official figure.

I should have gotten to this sooner, but you must remember that it has been improved in recent years, and that it's not like we have lists of other options to choose from for taking out missiles.
While we're at the topic of Cold War era technology, I recently had a good conversation with TheMason about Obama canceling the raptor. What do you all think about this?

Well, not to change the subject, but I was invited to come to this here crew with its fine people by a certain Mr. Patton. So I'd like to join by gauging your reaction to this:

Machiavelli was not actually sympathetic to principalities (little dictatorships), and despite writing The Prince he was actually one of the earliest modern Republicans and believed in the separation of powers a couple hundred years before Montesquieu.

Any doubts, or is this already common knowledge? I feel that he's probably one of the most misunderstood historical figures.

At 10/16/09 08:29 PM, Tancrisism wrote: Well, not to change the subject, but I was invited to come to this here crew with its fine people by a certain Mr. Patton. So I'd like to join by gauging your reaction to this:

Yeah... we're not as active as we used to be, so I invite people from time to time. I hate to be the only one who ever posts on here.

Machiavelli was not actually sympathetic to principalities (little dictatorships), and despite writing The Prince he was actually one of the earliest modern Republicans and believed in the separation of powers a couple hundred years before Montesquieu.

I never learned much about Machiavelli admittedly, although I plan to read THe Prince. However, if he wasn't at least somewhat sympathetic to the principalities, why did he write The Prince? As some grand piece of satire, or perhaps to just understand them, sort of show how they worked? and I must ask, in what writings did he convey this? I have no doubt he wrote other treatises, papers and such, but they're probably just so overshadowed by "The Prince".

At 10/16/09 08:29 PM, Tancrisism wrote:

Machiavelli was not actually sympathetic to principalities (little dictatorships), and despite writing The Prince he was actually one of the earliest modern Republicans and believed in the separation of powers a couple hundred years before Montesquieu.

Any doubts, or is this already common knowledge? I feel that he's probably one of the most misunderstood historical figures.

I suppose, but the book did leave a strong impact, more so than his other work.
By the way did anyone read "
WW2 behind closed doors-Stalin, the Nazis and the west" by Laurence Rees? its really very interesting.

hey guys!
Listen Badass tunes, we got this one covered every friday at 8pm est we do a line up of the best newgrounds audio portal have to offer, reviews and links stay tuned and go to BADASS 87 RADIO

if you want to promote your flash or radio show, or band or whatever you have to promote we do take guests on wednesday!

Isn't this kinda spam?

Yeah, Vago, it's alright to invite us as guests on the above mentioned radio show, but we can do without the logo that takes up half a page. In the future, just send pm's or make a small announcement if you'd like one of us as guests on VE day or something.

I should have made this a part of the above post, but I recently read in an article, from the Wall Street Journal I think, that Thanksgiving is the one true American, Christian holiday, and that the "war" on it is more pressing than the "war" on Christmas. The author in question makes this statement primarily on the following points:
1. There are 3 major holidays that are often grouped as Christian: Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving.
2. But since Christmas and Easter were originally pagan, Thanksgiving is the only "real" Christian holiday, since it's roots are with the protestant immigrants and Indians who first celebrated it.
3. According to our writer "The war over Thanksgiving as a holiday began when a generation was taught that the holiday's first setting was Pilgrims being saved from starvation by Native Americans. This war continues with a President that defines it as a time to thank each other."
It's worth noting that what prompted this was Obama referring to the holiday as "a time for us to renew our bonds with one another".
My 2 cents is that he's not okay with historical fact since it was to celebrate a good harvest with a feast. That good harvest due in most part to the help of the highly agricultural group of Indians under Massasoit... and I frankly see no problem with celebrating it as a day of thanks. Heaven forbid we should celebrate a national holiday in a secular manner. But hey, I'm a liberal atheist, so I'm obviously biased.
Thoughts anyone?

Bump-bump, we're not dead yet! we've had to good a run in the past to let this slip into oblivion.
As you probably well know, after World war I, soldiers returning home had a sense of disillusionment after seeing the horrors of 20th century warfare, only to return to a country that had problems too numerous to list here. They sought to drown their sorrows in booze, parties, and sex, to forget what they saw; rats feasting upon corpses, mustard gas filling the trenches, etc. some even became 'ex-patriots', leaving the U.S. behind and remaining in Europe. Most famous amongst the latter group being Ernest Hemingway. I think that there are serious parallels to be drawn between these men, and those returning home from Vietnam.
Thoughts?

May I join? I'm a little bit of a history nut and I love pretty much everything about modern history and the Cold War.

I hate myself for not putting this in the opening post; anyone can join, the only way one can be removed from this crew is to repeatedly make an ass of themselves.

At 2/26/10 08:44 PM, Patton3 wrote: I hate myself for not putting this in the opening post; anyone can join, the only way one can be removed from this crew is to repeatedly make an ass of themselves.

Sorry, forgot to look back at the posts before. Thanks for letting me know.

At 2/26/10 06:04 PM, Patton3 wrote: Bump-bump, we're not dead yet! we've had to good a run in the past to let this slip into oblivion.
As you probably well know, after World war I, soldiers returning home had a sense of disillusionment after seeing the horrors of 20th century warfare, only to return to a country that had problems too numerous to list here. They sought to drown their sorrows in booze, parties, and sex, to forget what they saw; rats feasting upon corpses, mustard gas filling the trenches, etc. some even became 'ex-patriots', leaving the U.S. behind and remaining in Europe. Most famous amongst the latter group being Ernest Hemingway. I think that there are serious parallels to be drawn between these men, and those returning home from Vietnam.
Thoughts?

Parallels can not only be drawn between the soldiers of WWI and Vietnam, but pretty much any war that soldiers have marched off to. In pretty much every war in the history of mankind, people have done horrible things to another in order to not only achieve victory, but also to simply survive.

However, from the standpoint of the United States, more comparison can found between Vietnam and Iraq. Especially for the start and ongoing conflict itself. There was support for both Vietnam and Iraq at the start, which died down once images, footage and news of what was actually happening overseas came back to the American people. Once bodies came home in coffins draped in the stars and stripes, people didn't really want to stay. However, in the First World War people were celebrating the outbreak of war (In Canada at least, the Americans didn't really care except for money) and people eagerly slapped their names down at recruiting stations hoping to run off for adventure. This kind of attitude on the home front stayed throughout the war effort... while soldiers did horrible horrible things to survive.

@grubby
welcome. As for jobs possible with a history degree, there is always writing and museum work, and with some classes in business, administrator or curator isn't out of the question. as well, cities and the federal government employ historians to keep track of... well, you know.
@sinfulwolf
Yes, however I was wondering if the disillusionment was more so given the cultural aftermath, and greater affect on a generation with these two wars in particular made stronger parallels.

Interesting question, unfortunately I don't think I really have the knowledge to give you an answer. Sorry.

I brought this up a couple of pages back, and it's pertinent, doesn't pertain to the U.S. alone, and might get us some posts again. So...
Name your 25 top persons whom you think had the greatest hand in shaping the world as it is today, in no particular order. It doesn't have to be 25 really, but let's just keep it between 10 and 100.
1. Johannes Guttenberg
2. James Watt
3. Peter the Great
4. Genghis Khan
5. Kublai Khan
6. Henry Ford
7. Florence Nightingale
8. Neville Chamberlain
9. Adolf Hitler
10. Josef Stalin
11. Mikhail Gorbachev
12. Douglas McArthur
13. Norman Borlaug
14. Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov
15. Viktor Zdhanov
16. Donald Henderson
17. Pope Innocent III
18. Pope Gregory the Great
19. Henry Dunant
20. Petrarch
21. Vladimir Lenin
22. Martin Luther
23. Galileo Galelei
24. Albert Einstein
25. Nikolas Copernicus
26. Julius Caesar
27. Hannibal
28. Elizabeth I
29. Socrates
30. Aristotle
Sorry if this is a bit incomplete/random. I just put them down as they came to mind.

Hope you don't mind me dropping in here seeing as I have no history with the History Club, but I'm looking for more clubs on NG to join, and seeing as I like history I imagine this club would be pretty enjoyable to become a part of. I'm definitely not the best at history in here, though I like discussing subjects at the same time. I'm not too involved in longer past history, though. Most of the history I am interested in is more modern, though I wouldn't mind learning more about different timeframes I did not previously know much about. The people I have listed below are some of those who I was planning to add, but it is late, I am tired, and I cannot think properly to formulate reasoning for others. I hope that these are enough for now, and I hope that I am able to join in with the History Crew.

Adolf Hitler: Hitler himself may not have created anything, but it was the Nazi empire that he controlled that designed many things I personally had no idea about. They had such things as the Sturmgewehr 1944 (Storm RIfle 1944), which was commonly regarded as the first ever assault rifle. The design for the German MG42 light machine gun was used for the development of the American M60, which was an iconic part of the Vietnam War. They also advanced tank design, though perhaps not in the manner presumed, with the Landkreuzer P.1000 Ratte and the P.1500 Monster tank designs. Some of the influences from these designs the Nazis used were recycled by other societies, which are more prevalent and commonly accepted in the world. The assault rifle is a staple of any recent conflict, and without the initial design of the Nazi scientists it may not have been a reality, or designs may have been less advanced.

Mikhail Kalashnikov: This is more of a continuation of the paragraph on Adolf Hitler. Anyone with an interest in firearms or who has played a shooter for more than about 20 minutes may know of the legendary AK-47, which was designed by Kalashnikov, as a design to compete with the Sturmgewehr 1944 from the Third Reich. The weapon has shaped many conflicts around the world with its simple, reliable design, and its successors. While the successors themselves may not be Mikhail Kalashnikov's design, they all draw inspiration from this weapon. Which incidentally, drew inspiration from the STG. 1944. While Kalashnikov himself rejected the idea his weapon was designed from the initial German creation, the base idea was created by the Nazis. Due to the prevalence of the Avtomat Kalashnikova 1947, as it was fully known, the creation has had a massive part in shaping conflicts in the world. It is human nature to war, and the AK-47 has been a staple of many wars.

Nicholas Cugnot: While Cugnot's design for a vehicle was primitive, and it was nothing of note, it was incredibly ahead of its time. The car itself was slow and badly designed, but in the 1700s when the idea came to fruition it must have been something absolutely outstanding. It may not have been the creation that made automobiles a reality, but it put the idea into the heads of others.

Gottleib Daimler / Karl Benz: Between these two men, the first true car came to fruition in the late 1880s. While it had three wheels, it was still an automotive design, which paved the road to cars of today. The legacy of the two men remains even today, with Daimler-Benz AG still in existence.

Henry Ford: Henry Ford was the founder of the Ford Motor Company, as to be expected. However, what the company did is truly staggering. Ford had a 'stack 'em high, sell 'em cheap' approach to motoring, and with the creation of his Model T, he made motoring almost mainstream. While it was out of the reach of many mortals, it made the automobile a necessity, and not a luxury afforded only to the most affluent of people. In 1916, of the cars on the road, 55% of the cars were Model Ts. That is truly something amazing.

Just a bit of overlooked History: The Middle East. More specifically, Post World War II Iran. How many here can say the name of Iran's first democratically elected Prime Minister? How many knew that the U.S. and Britain conspired to overthrow him and install the Shah? And that it was actually Islamic fundamentalists who overthrew the Shah due to his authoritarian rule?
I've been researching a few countries for a few upcoming debates of mine over nuclear disarmament, so naturally, I delved into Iran and it's history. This little jewel was one of the first articles I stumbled upon, and it's a 'brief history of Iran post WWII. I myself found it interesting since, as I alluded to earlier, Iran's history is anything but commonly studied. That such a history is largely left out of commonly used text books and mandatory classes is a damn shame. So, if you're offered a course in Middle Eastern History, ancient or modern, or somehow get an opportunity to study the history of the region, I urge you to take the opportunity.

I love history and all, this thread doesn't seem very active, we should get an active discussion about something in history so we can all start talking about something. Anyone have any ideas for a good topic in history to talk about?

I'm down for this. I've always found history and ancient cultures fascinating. Just knowing what has taken place to mold the modern world into the state it is today.

Cool. now we really just need a topic to start off on.

Welcome, but we have a very on/off relationship with activity.
But I brought up Middle Eastern History and linked to a Post WWII History of Iran. So that's a possible topic.
Any other topic suggestions?

Hey guys! I really love history, it's my favorite subject to study. Is it ok if I join in the discussions?

At 9/6/10 01:30 PM, Patton3 wrote: Any other topic suggestions?

Recently I have been studying modern American history. (the Wall Street crash, discrimination of blacks, immigration etc) We could talk about that.